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There are plenty of companies out there providing a way for you to get a cool case for all your devices be it the iPhone, iTouch, Blackberry and so on. IMakeMyCase, a side job of case-mate.com, is no exception in that they are also a provider of cool cases, yet their concept is wildly unique - they collaborate with world-class artists and musicians to produce some pretty rock'n designs.

Not only does IMakeMyCase provide case designs from top artists in both the music and art industries, but they provide a unique experience where you can use design pieces of a particular artist's collection of style to be the designer yourself.

How it works:

After I pick the artist I want to go with, the animation zooms me down to Chuck Anderson's Design Studio where you can either make a custom design based on Chuck's artwork and inspirational style or I can simply buy a pre-made Chuck Anderson case (pre-designed by Chuck - "what would chuck do?").

1) Start with a Background

2) Add design Elements

3) Mess around with design elements like mirroring them, changing colors or totally warping the design elements with the kaleidoscope tool.

When you first start designing you might feel limited with some of the artwork and tools, but actually the secret lies in laying a few things out and then completely mauling it with the Mirror, Colors and Kaleidoscope tools - many times over.

Can you believe it? COLOURlovers is up for a Best Community nomination AGAIN! This makes 5-years running, a record for Webby Nominations (pending confirmation from the Webby people). The Webby Awards are billed as the Oscars of the internet, and being nominated this many years in a row just keeps emphasizing how much love we get from our community. You are all truly great lovers!

We Need Your Vote + Love!

The Webby website can be a little overwhelming so don't turn tail and run the first moment you check out where to vote! Plus, you are allowed ONLY ONE VOTE per category (i.e. can only pick one community to win).

Yep, to vote you must be a registered voter. It's pretty quick and painless: www.webby.aol.com

Step 2: Find COLOURlovers Under the COMMUNITY Category

From the main menu hover over WEBSITES and find the COMMUNITY category. Remember to be logged in as a REGISTERED USER.

Step 3: The Ballot

When you get to the COMMUNITY page, you'll notice a bunch of categories above and below it. Of course ignore those and get straight to your vote! HERE IS A DIRECT LINK TO THE BALLOT

Bonus Step: Tell Them Why We Rock!

Chances are we won't win a popularity contest with Twitter, which has more than 200 Million users... But we can show them how passionate and supportive our smaller community is by leaving a comment of what you love about COLOURlovers. Once you've cast your vote, you can click the COLOURlovers name to view our entry page... and at the bottom is the comment area for you to share the love.

Help Spread the COLOURlove

We will be tweeting and facebooking this DAILY, so Re-Tweets, Shares and more will be much appreciated - You can TWEET or SHARE this article on your Twitter/Facebook too!

Tell your friends and family, leave fliers on cars at your local grocers, facebook it, Twitter it, rent a billboard to shout it to the world! You can also add a nifty little badge to your blog and/or website and anywhere else that accepts an HTML badge.

COPY either badge code below and PASTE to your blog/site:

An Awesomely Supportive Community - That's You!

We love our color community and appreciate all the support you give us day in and day out. COLOURlovers is ever growing in numbers and functionality. We wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for each and every lover on COLOURlovers. What once was a whim, a weekend idea from our uber-cool founder Darius (aka COLOURlover), is now a thriving, loving community. You just don't see this much passion in other communities. So thank you times a million and stay awesome!

The basic rule was to create a pattern (not necessarily from Hell) using a minimal color palette.

The Winners!

I'm wishing I had four books to give away because there was a tiebreaker...and number four was still a great contributor. Alas, I only have three...so let's see who gets them!

The most LOVED pattern was contributed by mooberri. Using some well placed basic shapes and a minimal color palette it turned out quite nice I think! Congrats!

Mooberri's personal Client From Hell experience:

"Well my friend is the CD at one if the best design firms in Canada and i know how to use Photoshop so i know a lot about design." - This was said as the client pulled out hideous fliers he had designed.

Next up, we have a TIE between anonymuse and hepvintage. Both excellent pieces and quite different. Neither of them posted anything about clients, but great patterns.

Best Runner up!

I wanted to give a shout and pat on the back to sec9586 for her funny contribution of "It needs to POP!" She came in just behind the tie (above).

And the winners are...

CaffeinatedLifeForm

I am a student as well as a freelance web and print designer. I love looking through design books for inspiration on any topics I may be working on at any given time. The vast amount of information that can be contained in a book has always endeared them to me (not just the pretty pictures:). - comment fromCaffeinatedLifeForm

Dextro

I'm a college student that's starting in the wonderful and magical world of freelance web design mostly because I've been doing it for fun over the last few years (and might as well do it for profit then).Also I'm just starting and haven't been able to scrape together the cash for either of the Smashing Books which saddens me. Does it help if I throw in a picture of a cute kitten? - comment fromDextro

andyardener

I am a web developer, that needs a little more insight into web design to merge them blurry lines into one. I also do some freelance work which leans heavy on web design, and i need to streamline my workflow a little.. so the wire framing section in particular sounds great. - comment fromandyardener

***Winners will be sent love notes. You will have seven (7) days to claim your winnings or I will draw another from the batch of contestants***

What a successful contest! I truly wish that we had a book for each and every person who made an effort to write down what they do and why you want the book. You all deserve a free copy!!

Stay tuned (via RSS) for future giveaways and contests which should be happening more regularly on the blog. Speaking of which, head on over to our latest contest:

The way that Apple has built it's product line off extreme minimalism both in color and design has always been intriguing to look back on. It becomes such a huge deal when they decide to add any sort of color to a particular product design. So this morning when I woke up and started slimming down my inbox, I couldn't help but click on the iPad 2 Release simply for the main showcase image...

Just holding this book makes me go, "ahhh..."

Everyone is raving about the quality of book #2 compared to book #1 (or published media in general). I don't blame them. I almost didn't mention it, because everyone else has, but that was ALSO my initial thought upon receiving my copy of the book. Straight from the box, I instinctively noticed these things in this order:

First, I noticed that I can plop it in my purse, no problem (and I don't carry an overly-large purse!). It's not too heavy or too many square/cubic inches. That's important, because I dread getting a great book, but eyeballing how thick it is sometimes hurts as I rarely have time for reading real books. My arms aren't going to fall off trying to hold it up while I'm laying in bed reading it.

Second, most definitely the quality. Smashing Magazine did not skimp on getting this little ditty published. Quality, stitch-bound, hard cover and hefty pages that produce sharp graphics. It's a nice tight number that you'll probably keep on your desk or prop on a shelf just because it's so pretty.

Third, artwork and graphics, amazing! They seriously couldn't go wrong with using Yiying Lu (yes, forever known as the creator of the famous Fail Whale from Twitter.com). But seriously, who can resist that kind of work, I know my three year old can't! What three year old do you know peruses a web and graphic design book with focus and interest? I will admit mine has a great attention span, but still... I'm caught flipping through the pages simply studying the chapter artwork. I have to laugh at myself.

Fourth and last, the cutest little ribbon bookmark comes attached. What a nice little touch! I bet this is the most talked about ribbon bookmark in the history of books. I suppose I will not be lazily dog-earing my new book.

So hands down on the book construction and makeup. Smashing you get a full applause in that area (I think everyone else would agree, no?)!

My thoughts from reading & perusing...

Chapters include:

#1 The Principles of Great Graphic Deisign

#2 Visible vs. Invisible Design

#3 Designing Mobile User Experiences

#4 Sketching, Wireframing and Prototyping

#5 Red Flags (Warning Signs) in Web Development

#6 The Future of Web Typeography

#7 Applying Game Design Principles to User Experience Design

#8 When they Click: Psychology of Web Design and User Behavior

#9 Design Patterns in e-Commerce Websites (Study)

#10 How to Make a Book (Like this One)

I realize that you can make something look pretty dang great, but fill it with garbage. Not in this case. I might be a bit bias because I am a HUGE fan of Smashing Magazine and the fantastic information they continue to provide to the design and web communities.... I will note, however, that the previous Smashing Book #1 seemed somewhat of a letdown to a "few" folks, which has become more prevailiant with Book #2 being such a positive hit and maybe with more of a comeback in the comparisons being made.

My primary area is Design. Both in print and web. And I will openly admit, I'm not ever going to be in the one of the top designers of the world because of this and that - so a book like this is absolutely PERFECT for me. I think anyone who wants a nice review, more insight

What I enjoyed in the first chapter was the correlation between the two, how different and yet similar they are.

"It stands to reason, then, that the process of design involves making deliberate and appropriate graphical choices in order to best communicate the intended message. This applies as much to designing for the Web as it does to designing for print." - excerpt, page 15

What I most enjoyed about this chapter was it's focus on using design effectively and timelessly. When I was reading through the pages of Timeless Thinking - which included talk about simplicity, adding too much gaudy junk (aka ornaments), minimalism, contrast, space and tension... it really brought me back to the basics in art school and working with drawing techniques. Sometimes I feel that I start a project over-designing and after I get that part about needing to impress the client out of my system and go minimal, it never fails to be the winning pick - this chapter was a kick in the pants refresher.

Then I read on to variations of Type and its effectiveness as well as the role it plays. Overall, a golden chapter to set your path a little straighter or teach you a few things.

"While a good graphic designer works to create an attractive design for the client, a great graphic designer pushes further, striving to understand the crux of the project's objective. The great designer builds on the various concepts ..." - excerpt, page 44

My other favorite, is chapter 7: Applying Game Design Principles to User Experience Design. What I most enjoyed was the play off of understanding the correlation between the two to make an easier way to think about UX Design. My favorite part starting with the section, The Name of the Game which goes through each of the five key attributes of the "game" of online interaction. It became a fun way to think about UX Design.

In conclusion, I like that the end of each chapter will sum up with a number of useful resources, about the author, some history from that section and even a nice extra Reading List for more in-depth study on a subject if interested - actually, I would have liked more reading resources at the ends of more chapters. I thought that was very helpful and resourceful to place in one area, instead of having to dig back through my dog-eared and highlighted pages and notes to locate a good resource I just know I marked.

I do find that this book is something I will be keeping on my desk for some time to reference and re-reference when my mind is fogged or fighting to go a direction my gut knows I shouldn't.

THE GIVEAWAY!

Are you tired of hearing me blab blab blab about the book? Are you just dying to get your hands on your own copy? Well here's your chance, we have 3 copies in our giveaway!

Contest Rules are simple. This will be a random drawing of three lucky commenters who provide the following information in their comment:

Please provide what your specialty is be it Design Warlord, Freelance Web Designer or Couch Potato... but seriously, I would like to know what you do for money or fun in the relationship to wanting the book in your grubby little paws.

Thecontest will run from March 10th, 2011 through March 18th, 2011- Winners will be announced the following week, Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011. Winners will also be emailed via Love Notes on COLOURlovers.com so make sure you turn your notifications ON for both in-site and email so that I can collect your address and get your prize out ASAP. Contest is for COLOURlovers.com users only, so if you aren't a member, get signed up and get commenting!

update: Did I forget to mention you can of course buy the book here (at SmashingMagazine.com) as well as preview a sample from the book and get other details. Pop on over and check it out!

But wait there's MORE! Apparently there was just too much good stuff to go to print, so Smashing Magazine is GIVING you a FREE eBOOK called The Lost Files (free eBook).

*********SUBMISSION TO THE CONTEST IS CLOSED*********

Results will be posted Tuesday, March 22nd (unless they magically appear on Monday the 21st. ;) Have a great weekend everyone!

The always lovely Design*Sponge has been showing a lot of color love recently and we're all for it! If you're not familiar with the curatorial prowess of Grace Bonney and her contributors I suggest you start with a few of these recent color lovin' posts.

This is only a small selection of liddle_r's December 2010 collection (browse them all), and includes recently created pattern templates as well a few patterns that have been around for awhile but deserve some love.

We are all so so impressed with the pattern designs that folks are creating with Seamless!

I've been collecting new fabulous patterns (templates) each month. Have a look at some of the great new patterns created in December 2010 and add your recent pattern designs in the comments.